March 3, 2015

Outcomes follow actions

When running a startup (or probably any organisation), it's important to remember that achieving a target or changing a specific metric require certain actions taken by specific people. One way to sanity check if a metric can be met at a specific time is to:

Understand what actions (a new feature, increased marketing etc) are the primary drivers of the metric

Estimate how long it will take to implement that action with a given number of resources

Understand what resources (people with specific knowledge, money etc) are needed to take those actions

If you don't have the resources, how long will it take you to acquire them (hire a new engineer in Sweden = 4.5-6 months with ramp-up time, raise more funding = varies a lot etc)

So even if you know how to increase a key metric, it's as important to understand how long it takes to do the job that will drive the change.